PAIRINGS: Optimus Prime/Ratchet (sorta), Primus/Optimus Prime (sorta)
WARNINGS (for this section): inadvertent tactile overload, stripping down to the protoform/undressing, religious thought and visionquesting, (very) ecstatic prayer.
The remaining days to the ritual went quickly.
The Decepticons were quiet. There was only one incident-a raid on a natural gas storage facility-but even that was atypical. Soundwave, Starscream, and a trine of seekers flew in under cover of night, set the humans' security cameras to loop, and quickly condensed as much energon as they could subspace. When a human guard caught a glimpse of them and raised the alarm, they melted away as silently as they'd come without a shot fired.
"Weird," Ironhide offered, when they found out.
"Technically keeping to the ceasefire," Prowl observed.
"Luring us into a false sense of security," Red Alert muttered.
"Their fuel supplies were pretty low, last we knew. Maybe they're fueling up for the occasion," Jazz suggested with a grin.
Ratchet, who was halfway through his class schedule of frame-based "Ritual Prep That Won't Frag Off Ratchet" demonstrations, snorted a laugh but added "Remind everyone to come in fully fueled so they're not the inevitable idiots who drop into stasis halfway through" to his to-do list.
Optimus just smiled behind his facemask.
Later that day, he and his acolytes visited the ritual site for a final inspection. Grapple and Hoist had outdone themselves. The clearing was transformed, the bare ground replaced by newly-cut and precisely level paving stones made from the mountain's foot itself. Decorative patterns of shape and color were worked into the design, reminiscent of the tiling in Iacon's destroyed Hall of the Primes. At the center of the plaza, cut from the same stone, was a square dais, accessed on each of its sides by four low (by Cybertronian standards) steps. Each step was etched with sacred ecclesiastical glyphs of virtue: strength, wisdom, courage, compassion, selflessness... The top of the dais was even more heavily decorated. Different colors of stone spiraled into a central starburst, the mosaic textured densely with hand-etched glyphs.
The entire structure was summons and praise and thanksgiving, a Cybertronian prayer carved in Earthen stone. Optimus stood on the dais, at the center of a hymn in solid form, new-carved and bleeding the devotion of the mechs who had labored over it ceaselessly for more than one hundred Earth hours straight.
Behind him, Grapple and Hoist shifted nervously on the steps at his silence. "Prime?" Grapple finally ventured, his dusty frame hunched slightly as if waiting for rejection.
Optimus, temporarily bereft of language, pulled the two of them bodily up onto the dais and proceeded to show them just how much their Prime approved of their dedication. The builders, tired but overjoyed, lasted only for two rounds of their Prime's appreciation before falling into exhausted recharge.
Optimus, the charge still crawling under his plating, barely had time to take a steadying ventilation before his acolytes were there. Mirage's mouth descended upon his, hands stroking and soothing overheated plating, plugs sliding into achingly empty ports while Jazz slid between Optimus' spread thighs, his spike sliding into the Prime's dripping valve like a key in a lock. Jazz leaned in to nudge his way to Optimus' mouth while Mirage shuddered, his presence broadcasting pleasure over Optimus' entire sensor net. Jazz whispered against Optimus' lips, "We've got you, Prime. Let it go. Take what you need."
Optimus groaned, tension fleeing at the feel of connection, his spark stuttering between contentment and a vast, nameless want that even Mirage's talented processor, even Jazz's clever mouth and smooth, deep strokes could not sate. Even as he arched, even as he fell into the seventh processor-whiting overload of the day, Optimus was almost painfully aware, down to his struts, that something was missing.
The day of the ritual dawned beautifully crisp and clear. Autobots went about their business as usual: patrolling, monitor duty, etc, cultivating an atmosphere of barely-contained excitement as the day turned. Red Alert moved about like a mech possessed, double and triple-checking every detail of his security plan, from the guard rotation assignments to the Ark's automated defenses. The Dinobots, who were much too young to participate in the ritual, were to be left under the care of Huffer and Gears, who were gladly staying behind to guard the Ark. Optimus Prime praised the two pessimistic minibots for their dedication but specifically reminded them that Ironhide and Trailbreaker would spell them the next day to give them a chance to join the Rite.
The Dinobots grumped that the minibots were no fun. Wheeljack told them to be good anyway, guard the Ark, listen to Gears and Huffer, and he'd tell them all the stories they wanted when he got back.
In the middle of the afternoon, Optimus, Ratchet, Jazz, and Mirage transformed and drove away from the Ark, heading into the mountains to the ritual site.
Hoist and Grapple had built, as well as the plaza and dais, a simple preparation shelter among the trees at the edge of the clearing. It was there that the Prime settled, spark thrumming, as he stretched out eagerly under Ratchet's servos.
The shedding of weapons and armor was both a symbolic and a practical gesture. Symbolic for the Prime in that he was offering himself both to Primus and to the people, becoming a tool of the divine, given to others and holding nothing back. Symbolic for the ritual-goers as a sign of respect and devotion, abandoning the trappings of war before entering Primus' presence. Practical in that it was much easier to pleasure everyone involved when sensors were bare, the pliable metal of protoform within reach of determined fingers, glossae, servos, and whatever else the participants wished to bring into play.
The removal of so much outer plating, of course, could be a major undertaking requiring a medic's careful attentions. Much of it was not built to be easily removable, and Ratchet had insisted that the crew could make do with what they or a helpful friend could reach. For Prime, though, he set to work loosening connectors and lifting away plating that had been in place for thousands of vorn. The process was long and excruciating for reasons that had nothing to do with pain.
In the past few days Optimus had found concentrating increasingly difficult. He had, at first, put it down to his own dormant liturgical programs activating. They had always heated his circuits pleasantly, and on Cybertron such had been expected. Easing the rising tension was part of the acolytes' duty. However, Optimus had found himself leaning upon Jazz and Mirage's attentions to what seemed to him an excessive degree. His spark had throbbed constantly, and his interfacing equipment had not been much better. Eventually, as even his acolytes hadn't been able to ease the ache, he'd been forced to admit that the Matrix was (yet again) making a point.
He could only hope-pray, really-that the spark and frame his own were aching for actually showed up. Otherwise, he was fairly certain that he would be driven to a highly inadvisable trip to the Nemesis to find them. Until then, though, he could only balance on the blade's edge of pleasure as well as he could.
Until Ratchet began taking his plating off, baring sensors to touch and moving air.
The barest inadvertant touch to his protoform tipped him over, and all Optimus could do was cut his vocalizer and lock his joints to keep from disturbing the medic's work as overload spilled over him in a crackle of crawling blue charge.
Ratchet gasped, catching the sparking edges of it, and froze. "Was that-"
"It's normal," Mirage said, kneeling serene and unsurprised at Optimus' feet. "He is very sensitive."
Optimus slowly got himself under control enough to nod to Ratchet.
Ratchet huffed in amusement. "I'll try to make this quick, then." He continued, doing just that with a gentleness that was almost a TEASE. It did help Optimus deal with the increased sensitivity, though, as the heavy itch of plating was lifted away from shoulders, chest, torso. His helm was lightened one small plate at a time, his facemask removed. First one arm, then the other was lightened, the armor there coming off in sections like a human removing clothes. Legs followed suit, and he felt as if he was shedding lead weights.
When Ratchet was finished, Optimus' armor was stacked neatly against one wall. He rose, stretching and rotating his joints to check mobility under Ratchet's watchful optic. He felt light enough for the teasing Earth wind to blow him away. It tickled over his sensors.
Optimus pulled in a deep ventilation, inner protoform plating that was the last, barest defense over internal systems flaring fully in a luxurious stretch. The sensation carried memories of many rites like these, many days of pleasure and joy and fulfillment. He waded through them to check his chronometer and with one last steadying ventilation nodded to Mirage and Jazz. They nodded and rose, following Ratchet out of the shelter and leaving him alone for the last stage of preparation.
The origins of the Rite of Prima's Blessing were lost to history, but not to a Bearer of the Matrix. Prima, the second bearer of the Matrix of Leadership, had been a slave, a gladiator forced to fight and kill for the amusement of his Quintesson masters. The senseless violence had worn on the mech's spark, as had the terrible conditions he and the rest of his race faced. Through the Matrix, he had sought Primus, who had given him a blissful vision of hope, love, and unity. Moved to share that vision with his people, Prima had done his best to ease their suffering, giving them whatever comfort and pleasure his frame could provide and freely sharing his own noble, indomitable spark. Though he had not lived to see the revolution, his selfless example, the glimpse of Primus' love he'd shared, and his senseless death were all rallying points, uniting the slaves as they rose against and overthrew their oppressors. Every Prime since, on the orbital anniversary of Prima's death, held the Rite in Prima's honor, communing with Primus as Prima had and then spreading his blessing among the people by sharing frame and spark.
The Rite traditionally began with prayer, the Prime connecting to Primus not through the mediator of the Matrix but through the sheer devotion of his spark. It was submission, invocation, confession...and Optimus trembled at the prospect.
The thoughtforms came easily: processing threads aligned to devote themselves to meditation on the very virtues that were carved into the dais steps outside. Much as it did with humans, the concentration allowed him to corral his processor, finding and terminating stray threads and subroutines. Slowly, his queue cleared. His thoughts focused, methodically shedding assumptions, irrationalities, fears, doubts, and worries. The more he contemplated it, the more time, then space became irrelevant concepts. He existed here, now, and all that mattered was the present. The future, then the past, peeled away from his spark and processor.
Optimus focused on the hum of his spark, the particular subatomic resonance it sang as it spun and pulsed in his chest. After awhile he could see how his frame was irrelevant, how everything he was was contained in the Primus-given spark in his chest and all physical being was a mere shell. Sensors, chronometer, status logs, even his connection to the Matrix were all left behind as, with a painless twist of consciousness, Optimus fell inward and found his deity waiting for him.
In that timeless place there was no material form, no sight or sound or other sensory information. Only pure knowledge. Absolute truth. There, with no excuses, reasons, complications, he was faced with true self awareness, and his entire being keened in sorrow.
He had corrupted the Primal coding that had been given to him, waged war upon his own Lord Protector, maintained a war of attrition for countless vorn out of the belief that his cause was just while mechs died by the billions... His arrogance and pride had helped extend this war, when hard compromise might have ended it. He had brought that same senseless war to other peoples and maintained it still on a planet not his own, risking billions more innocent lives. He had turned away from his ecclesiastical functions, cutting off Primus' children from their religion and the bulk of their unifying traditions. Instead of the life of gentle, firm leadership and communion with Primus that had been his fate, he had taken up arms and armor, forging himself into a warrior who had killed or directed the killing of countless of his own subjects. And in his cowardice and his fear that his and Megatron's blasphemy, the horrific war they fought, would make Primus forsake him, forsake them all, he had resisted the call of prayer, turning from Primus in fear and shame, until the very Matrix itself had forced his hand.
The spark that was Optimus trembled as something that was infinitely more powerful than himself examined these sins and a million others. As a sense of dissonance and wrongness grew with every remembered life lost. As that power turned to him, not with judgment but with sadness and regret for a beautiful race and a promising future, for billions of lives shattered and darkened by genocide and civil war.
Optimus' very being wept. I am sorry. I am so sorry. My people...I am so sorry...
That gentle, irresistable force refocused his attention, pulling him back from the contemplation of his faults and failures and instead nudging him toward virtues and victories. He had fought to the best of his abilities to defend the weak and protect the innocent. He had granted mercy to those both worthy and unworthy, sometimes at the risk of his own life. His optimism and eternal hope had brought hundreds of mechs back from the downward spiral of hatred and violence and despair. He had ruled wisely, surrounding himself with mechs from various cultures and castes and encouraged them to speak their minds, to help keep his decisions just and balanced. He had led by example, through hard work, devotion, and selflessness, giving tirelessly of himself again and again, without end. He had reached out to his Lord Protector over and over, risking his own life to give his people hope. His spark, battered and scarred as it was, was still that of a Prime: spinning with compassion, love, and a true desire for peace.
And yet he'd failed, Optimus insisted. If he'd had a frame, he would have knelt. He would have bowed low in supplication, in entreaty, in agony, in penance. These were his people. His responsibility. His failure. His spark cried out in pain, helplessly reaching for reconciliation, for aid, for peace...
Help me. Help us. Please. Please...
Warmth spilled over him like the blessing it was. Love poured into his spark. Love, forgiveness, reassurance, and the hot desire for connection. It swept him up and up and up, his spark's resonance shifting higher and higher as divine energy filled him, leaving no space for shame or fear or doubt. Wrapped in that perfect love, he recognized but did not worry about the shift in his own coding, the slight, deft changes to his systems, so reminiscent of the transformation that had turned Orion Pax into Optimus Prime. This change, though, did not hurt. It felt right, like ill-fitting plating shed, like a wound that had suddenly stopped hurting. He slid back into his frame seamlessly, his sensors still half-divine, overlaying over sight and sound the strut-deep thrum of oh...oh so many sparks outside in need of healing.
One more stroke of energy into his spark, and Optimus cried out in pleasure and praise, his very spark resonating not so much with words as the knowledge of words...
There is still time, my creation. Go. Share. All will be well.
Spark singing, Optimus rose and went to meet his people.